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Imagine this, it is early in the month of November, and you have a long day ahead of you. It has been raining all morning, and you are expecting a bit of mud. You pack all your necessary things into your UTV and start your day. Ahead of you is a muddy patch, so you slow down to cross it. Unfortunately, you get stuck! Thankfully you invested in a high-quality winch! In mere minutes, you can free your vehicle from the mud and get on your way.

There are tons of UTV winches available for you consider, and they come in a large variety of different sizes to fit nearly any vehicle. Here, we will look at some factors that contribute to the quality of a winch to help you find the perfect product for your needs.

Before considering UTV winches, you need to make sure you know how heavy your UTV is. If you are unsure, you can perform a quick Internet search, contact the manufacturer, or look in the vehicle’s manual. It is essential to know how much power will be needed to move your vehicle.

How Do I Choose A Winch?

After you have found out the weight of your UTV and decided what you want to use it for, you can decide which winches you want to consider. There are many winches out there offered by a variety of brands. Your decision to purchase from one brand can be based on name recognition, features, or price, as they all offer different features at different price points.

Starting at 1,000 and reaching almost 4,000 pounds, winches are listed by pulling capacity. A good saying when it comes down to winches is, “you can never have too much winch”. This may be true, as it is better to have a little extra power than a little less, but purchasing a winch with power that you will never need or a winch with extra weight that will just slow you down is clearly a waste of money.

** Editor’s Choice – Best UTV Winch **

The Superwinch Terra 3500lbs single line pull is a powerful winch capable of pulling over 3500 pounds with great ease of use features like a wireless remote and mounted controls. The remote makes it incredibly convenient to use and allows you to control it from the comfort of your car.

Features

Offers great efficiency with low power consumption, making it ideal for running off a car’s power.

Steel planetary gear twice as large as gears used by competitors, making this a strong machine.

Weatherproofed and sealed circuit breaker giving you the assurance that this will last for a very long time.

Roller fairlead is 4-way

One-year limited warranty

Review

For the price ( Check current price ), this winch provides a lot more rigidity than we were expecting. It works great for hauling heavier vehicles thanks to its large weight capacity, and its release mechanism is very easy to use.

Summary

This 3500lb capable winch can handle any job. If you are in the market for a good, solid winch, then this is the one for you. It’s durable, lightweight, and most importantly super strong!

** Best Budget UTV Winch **

This winch kit from Extreme Max has all the features you will ever need from a winch kit in its price range. The low price yet a large range of features make this a solid contender for the best winch on the market.

Features

This winch kit includes all the parts and accessories you will ever need

Low noise and power consumption with high efficiency

All parts covered for weather resistance

Dynamic braking for convenience and safety

Universally compatible mounting system

Limited 2-year warranty

Review

Overall, this is a wonderful winch kit that includes everything needed to bolt it to your UTV as soon as possible. It is a durable and consistent performing product that takes pride in simplistic, yet versatile performance.

Summary

This is the best budget winch for light UTV usage. Not everyone can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a winch, and if that’s the case for you, then this is ideal. You honestly can’t get better value for money.

This Warn Vantage 4000lb capable winch offers more power than you are likely to need allowing you to complete a large variety of tasks with ease. This makes it a great all-around winch that has a lot of uses.

Features

Review

This 4000-pound capable winch pulls twice as fast as competing winches while consuming less power making it one of the best UTV winches available. There are two remotes available, and the handlebar controls make it easy to use for a task like plowing snow, but for when your UTV gets stuck, it is nice to use the corded controller to ensure you are a safe distance away.

Summary

A huge weight capacity and multiple convenient remotes make this winch a joy to use. If you ever need to lift something as heavy as 4000LB I would be surprised but, nonetheless, this winch has you covered!

This limited edition winch kit has some more features to offer compared to the previous kit but at almost double the price.

Features

Entirely sealed parts with a lifetime warranty

Steel hardware and planetary gears for rigidity and performance

Handlebar controls, wiring, and terminal boots all included for convenience

Review

This winch works wonderfully and offers a universal mount for easy use with any UTV’s. Even when submerged in mud and water over long periods of time, this UTV winch keeps exceeding our expectations.

Summary

This is a higher-end winch kit with all the features needed to get started pulling. If you are looking for something a bit more premium than budget, that can handle intense work; then this is a good place to start. The steel hardware makes this an incredibly strong and reliable winch that is loved by thousands.

Summary

How Will You Use Your Winch?

When first thinking of winch uses, it is common to overlook many possibilities. You can use a winch for a wide variety of things, such as hauling loads of heavy materials. A winch should be looked at as a helping hand with the capability of hauling 1,500 or more pounds with ease. The possibilities are endless when it comes down to great uses for a UTV winch, so think of all the things you want to use a winch for and base your buying decision on that.

Winches and Their Capacities:

1,000 – 2,000 pound capacity

The best UTV winches within this capacity range are best used for lighter and smaller UTVs. In general, if you have a 4-wheel drive UTV with large displacement, you are going to want a greater weight capacity. A big trend with UTV’s is smaller sport/utility vehicles. These are perfect for winches in this weight capacity range, as these winches can easily fit snugly within the frame rails of the smaller UTV’s, and they can surely get you out of a tough situation. When getting stuck going up a steeper hill, you want to be able to use your winch to easily get you over the top.

2,000+ pound capacity

Winches with a capacity of 2,000 pounds and upwards are the most common and suitable for a majority of pulling jobs. Most UTV’s in the utility class will require a winch within this weight capacity range. These winches with greater weight capacity are much more useful for a wide variety of tasks such as transporting heavy loads of material. It is important not to get a winch that will be over-stressed by the weight of your UTV, so we think that winches in this price range make the best UTV winches.

For users with the most versatile UTV’s available, this is the best winch category for you. There are several companies that even make winches capable of pulling 4,000 pounds specifically for the powerful UTV’s that need to carry large loads. Despite their strength, these winches are compact and very durable. These winches feature a design similar to that of a truck, as they are primarily operated from the outside of the UTV. They also offer an immense amount of power for taking on anything from transporting downed trees to self-recovering from a mud puddle.

Mounting

It is essential for you to use proper mounting hardware designed to fit your UTV. This is due to the amount of stress and pressure that winching can apply to the frame of your UTV. Good mounting hardware is constructed to be able to handle such high pressure without damaging the frame of your vehicle. The last thing we want is a UTV getting destroyed while trying to make a recovery. Additionally, it is safer to mount the UTV winch properly.

Something else to take into account is the electrical system of your vehicle. Like installing any other modification, installing a winch requires you to look at all the aspects before you get started. Ensure you have a fresh battery in your UTV before installing one of our best UTV winches. For newer UTV models, this shouldn’t be an issue, but for older vehicles, it may be advantageous to get the battery checked or replaced. As always, it is a great idea to check your battery for signs of wear often. The majority of UTV’s have a strong enough electrical system for handling a winch, so don’t get too worried about this aspect.

How to Get The Most From Your Winch

To ensure you purchase one of the best UTV winches, you want to find a winch that offers convenience and ease of use. Here are some important features that you can look for when buying a winch to help you decide what winch fits your needs best.

Kits

To get all of the extras and accessories that you will ever need with your UTV winch at a lower cost than buying the parts individually, you can purchase a winch kit. Typically, these winch kits will include tow straps with multiple loops, a steel shackle, a mesh bag for equipment, a pulley block, and a nylon bag for attaching the accessories to the UTV itself.

Techniques of Winching

There are two primary methods of pulling with a winch. These methods each have their own advantages and disadvantages, so you can decide which fits your needs the best.

Single-line

The single-line pulling method is the most common among the two. Using a single-line winch allows you to attach the cable directly to the material or object you wish to pull and pull it at the weight capacity of your winch. When using this method, the weight capacity of your winch never changes.

Double-line

The double-line method doubles your winch’s carrying capacity making it more effective. This is done using the help of a pulley block. With this block, the hook and cable of the winch are wrapped around it and attached to the UTV again. This pulley block can be used as a secure anchor on a nearby sturdy object, such as a tree, and then used to safely and efficiently pull your UTV out of trouble with minimum effort on your part. Another way of using this winching method is attaching the pulley block to a heavy object that is then pulled towards the winch with double the winches weight capacity. No matter how you use this technique, you receive the double weight capacity benefit.

Manual Winches

In addition to electrical winches, mechanical winches are also available. These winches work like a ratchet to quickly move from the front to the rear of the UTV for great versatility. Despite what their manual labor requirements, these winches make some of the best UTV winches. These are smaller winches with the ability to self-align themselves and offer adequate pulling power for heavier loads.

These ratchet type winches work very similarly to ratcheting tie-down straps in the way that they require a locking pin with a gear that is easily controlled by a handle. These pins are used to lock the gears in place preventing the strap from pulling out after you have reeled it in similar to the way a ratcheting wrench only lets you turn it one direction. This is a great winch option for anyone looking to pull about 900 pounds, and it comes in a small, lightweight package.